The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-12-22
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject: "Too Much Ado About
Small Things"

A proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge
IN chunks, library in q sentence the cleo
ITCHY OF many clouds discharged in one bolt
river put through mill race, When Christ
quotes tho prover5 of the text He means to
set forth the ludicro,is behavior of those who
make great buster about small sins and
have no appreciation Of great ones.
In my text small insect and large quad
ruped arc brought into comparisons gnat
and a camel. You have in museum or on the
sprawling creature, with back two stories
high, anu stomach having collection of
reservoirs for desert travel an animal for
hidden to the Jews rs food, and in many
lteratures entitled "the ship of the desert. '"
The gnat spoken Of in the text is in the grub
form. 1t is born in pool or pond after few
weeks becomes chrysalis, and then after a
few days becomes the gnat as we recognize
it. 1t is in its smallest Shape, and yet inhabits
The water-for my text is misprint, ami
ought to real, strain out a gnat."
My text shows you the Prince of inconsis-
tencies. A man after long observation has
formed the suspicion that in n cup of water
he is about to drink there is grub or the
grand parent of a gnat. He goes and gets
sieve or strainer. he takes the water and
pours it through the sieve in the broad light.
He says: II would rather do anything almost
than drink this water until this larva be ex-
tirpated." This water is brought under in
QUESTION. The experiment is successful The
water rushes through the sieve and leave,
against the side OF the sieve the grub or gnat.
Then the man carefully removes the insect
and drinks the water in placidity. But going
out one day, and hungry. he devours a ship
OF the desert" the camel, which the Jews
were forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has
no computations of conscience He suffers
from no indigestion. He puts the lower Jaw
under the camels fore foot. and his upper
Jaw over the hump of the camels back, and
gives one swallow and the dromedary dsap
pears forever. He strained out a cpat. he
swallowed camel.
While Christ's audience were yet smiling at
the appositeness and wit of his illustration
for smile they did in church unless they were
too stupid to understand the hyperbo.e-
Christ practically said to them: That is
YOU Punctilious about small things; reck-
less about affairs of great magnitude. No
subject ever withered under a surgeons knife
more bitterly than did the Pharisees under
Christ's scalpel of truth. As an anatomist
will take human body to pieces and put
them under microscope for examination, so
Christ finds His way to the heart of the dead
Pharisee and cuts it out and puts it under the
glass of inspection for all generations to ex-
anime. Those Pharisees thought that Christ
would fiatter them and compliment them
and how they must have writhed under the
redhot words as he said: "Ye fools, We whited
sepulchres, ye blind guides, which strain out
gnat and swallow a camel"
There are in our day a great many gnats
strained out and great many camels swal-
lowed, and it is the object of this sermon to
sketch few persons who are extensively en-
gagged in that business
First | remark that all those ministers of
the Gospel are photographed in the text who
are very scrupulous about the conventional
ties OF religion but put no particular stress
upon matters of vast Importance. Church
services ought to be grave and solemn. There
is no room for frivolity in religious convoca-
ton. But there are illustrations and there
are hyperboles like that of Christ in the text
that will irradlate with smiles any inteli-
gent auditory. There are men like those blind
guides of the text who advocate only those
things IN religious service which draw the
corners of the mouth down. and denounce all
those things which have a tendency to draw
the corners of the mouth up. and these men
will go to installations and to presbyteries
and to conferences and to associations, their
pockets full of fine sleeves to strain out the
gnats while in their own churches at home
every Sunday there are fifty people sound
asleep. They make their churches a great
dormitory and their so,nnferous sermons
are cradle, and the drawlei out hymns a
lullaby, while some wakeful soul in q pew
with her fan keeps the flies Off unconscious
to sleep in church than to smile in church,
for the latter implies at least attention
while the former implies the indifference of
the hearers and the stupidity of the speaker
In old age, or from physical infirnity, or
from long watching with the sick, drow-
siness will sometimes overpower one;
put when minister of the Gospel
LOOKS off upon an audience and finds
healthy and intelligent people struggling with
drowsiness, it is time for him to give out the
doxology or pronounce the benediction. The
great fault of church services today is not
ifyy h,,f %1o
Violence. The one Is an irritating gnat
that may be easily strained out; the other is
great, sprawling and sleepy eyed camel of
the dry desert In all our Sabbath-schoo!s
In all our Bible classes, in all our pulpits, we
need to brighten up our religious message
the text.
take down from my library tie biogra-
phles Of ministers and writers of past ages,
Inspired and uninspired, who have done the
most to bring souls to Jesus Christ, and |
ma that without single exception, they con
secrated their wit and their humor to Christ
Elijah used it when he advised the Baalites
as they could not mako their God respond,
telling them to call louder, as their God
Job used it when he said to his self.conceited
comforters: Wisdom will die with you"
Christ not only used it in the text, but when
lie ironically complimented the putreted
Pharisees, saying: 1.-The whole need not
physician and when by one word He de-
scribed the cunning of Herod, saying: go
we, and tell that fox" Matthew Henry's
commentaries from the first page to the
last coruscated with humor as summer
clouds with helt and lightning John Bun
vans writings are as full of humor as they
are OF saving truth, and there is not an aged
man here who has ever read Pilgrims Pro
gress" who does not remember that while
rQaGlnr no nc DC ta ont
Chrysostom, George Herbert, Robert South,
John Wesley George Whtefied, Jeremy
Taylor, Rowland Hill, George G.. Finney and
all men of the past who greatly advanced
the Kingdom of God consecrated their wit
and their humor to the cause of Christ So
1t has been in all the ages, and l say to these
young theological students, who cluster in
these services Sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen
your wits as keen as cimeters, and then take
them into this holy war.
It is a very short bridge between a smile
and tear, suspension bridge from eye to
lip, and it is soon crossed over, and smile is
sometimes just as sacred as tear There is
as much religion, and think a little more,
IN spring morning than in a starless mid
night. Religious work without any humor
or wit in it is a banquet with side of beef,
and that raw, and no condiments, and no
aessert succeeding. People will not sit down
ut such a banquet. By all means remove all
hIfolty uiu all DdbnOS anu Ill llRnuueSS anu
all vulgarity--strain them out through the
sieve Of holy discrimination; but, on the
other hand, beware of that monster which
overshadows the Christian church to-day,
conventionality, coming up from the Great
Sahara desert Of ecclesiasticism, having on
its back hump of sanctimonious gloom, and
vehemently refuse to swallow that camel.
Oh how particular great many people
are about the infinitesimals while they are
quite reckless abont the magnitudes What
did Christ say. Did he not excoriate the
people in His time who were SO careful to
wash their hands before a meal but did not
wash their heartsl 1t is bad thing to
have unclean hands; it is a worse thing to
have an unclean heart. How many people
there are in cur time who are very anxious
that after their death they shall be buried
with their feet toward the east, and not at all
anxious that during their whole life they
should face in the right direction SO that they
shall come up in the resurrection of the just
whichever way they are buried. How many
there are chiefly anxious that minister OF
the Gospel shall come in the line of apostolic
succession, not caring so much whether he
comes from Apostle Paul or Apostle Judas.
They have way Of measuring gnat until